In his “Treatise of the Bewildered Ecstatic Traveller” the noted Indian Sufi Shaykh Najmuddin Kubra outlines some of the benefits of fasting, including:
* The restraining of the ego, which incites towards evil.
* The receipt of a recompense without end as: “Only the patient will obtain their recompense without reckoning” (Quran: 39:10).
* The purification of the sins of the ego.
* Your name gets inscribed in the list of the sincere ones, as fasting is an act of devotion in which hypocrisy and showing off have no place.
* It gives you an understanding of the suffering of the hungry and thus being able to treat them with compassion and mercy.
* It gives you a healthy body.
* It empties the worst of containers, because “there is no worse container than your belly”.
* It has to do with trust, because fasting is the trust of God.
* It has to do with keeping your promise, because when you express your intention to fast, then this is a promise you make to God.
* It helps you to avoid silly and foolish speech.
* No matter what, if you are fasting, you receive the help of God.